


A Matter of Camping

by tartanfics



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, potentially cracky situations, unsafe camping practices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-16
Updated: 2011-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-19 14:54:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tartanfics/pseuds/tartanfics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day, Sherlock decides they are going camping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I realize the summary sounds like total crack. I think it was originally intended to be total crack. And then it became 11,000 words and totally serious. [](http://miss-sabre.livejournal.com/profile)[ **miss_sabre**](http://miss-sabre.livejournal.com/)  is my AWESOME BETA OF AWESOMENESS. Also #bakerstreet is full of helpful and insanity.

John's still not sure how they wound up going camping.

Sherlock had made it sound vitally important, and John always seems to go along with what Sherlock says, whether it's important or not. He has trouble picturing Sherlock camping. It's not the woods that are the problem, really--he's seen Sherlock in woods before, standing around a dead body cordoned off with blue and white tape. But Sherlock, in his scarf and long coat and leather gloves, surrounded by police and all the trappings of a crime scene, can make the woods conform to his standards. Camping, Sherlock will have to conform to the woods. John's not even sure what Sherlock's going to wear. Surely not a suit. He's never seen Sherlock wear anything that's not at one extreme or the other--suit or pyjamas.

"Which foods can one cook with a camp fire?" Sherlock asks one morning, as John is sleepily shuffling around the kitchen making tea, getting ready for work.

John stops short, kettle in hand. "Why?"

Sherlock just looks at him over a beaker.

"Um, hot dogs, marshmallows, anything you can wrap in tin foil and shove in the coals. Will you look at me like I'm stupid if I ask why again?"

"Yes. I'm putting you in charge of the shopping. We need food for three days."

"Three days--what--Sherlock, are you suggesting we go camping?"

"I'm not suggesting it, John."

John throws up his hands in defeat, and sloshes water all over his hand from the half-full kettle. They are going camping.

-

John doesn't like to ask where the camping equipment came from. They've got everything--tent, lamp, matches, sleeping bags. He comes home from the shops, and he’s only been gone twenty minutes, but suddenly there’s all this stuff piled against the wall. He eyes Sherlock, who is lying on the sofa texting, but he thinks it better not to ask. He doesn’t want to know whether or not Sherlock has been committing crimes in the name of camping.

Actually, he is resolutely not thinking about the camping at all. He is not thinking about why they’re camping, or about what camping with Sherlock will be like, or about sleeping in a tent with Sherlock for three days. He is not thinking about the quiet tension slowly eating away at them, or about what will happen when they’re in a tent in the woods and can’t get away from each other.

When he dreams that night about bombs, it’s not in an indoor swimming pool but at a lake, and when Sherlock pulls the trigger and throws himself at John, they fall together into a tent, their campfire spreading.

-

They take a taxi to their camp site. _Who the hell takes a taxi camping?_ John wonders. It must have cost a fortune, but John doesn't see Sherlock pay the driver, after Sherlock pushes him away to haul their tent and their bags out of the boot. John doesn't know quite where they are. They've gone north, out of London, he knows that much, but he stopped recognizing landmarks a while ago.

There's a lot John doesn't know.

When the taxi pulls away, they are left standing by the side of the road, at the beginning of a thin dirt track into the trees. Their equipment is piled around their feet. It's cold and grey out, and John eyes their surroundings suspiciously.

"Is this a proper campsite?"

Sherlock doesn't answer.

"Sherlock, are we allowed to camp here?"

"Will it make a difference if I say no?"

It should do. "Probably not."

Sherlock's mouth quirks because he knows John never says no, and John has to clear his throat and look away, start gathering up their things.

Inevitably, John winds up loaded down with tent and bags and coolbox. Sherlock's carrying nothing but a bag which looks suspiciously like it contains John's laptop.

"You could help carry some of this," John says, following Sherlock down the dirt path.

"You'll be fine."

"Yes, but--Sherlock, that isn't the point."

"Your estimations of fairness are really very childish, you know. I'm busy."

John sighs and hefts the bags up again. They walk for ten minutes, and Sherlock is clearly looking for something, but John can't tell what. Their camp site, he supposes, but none of this looks like good ground for camping.

Finally, at a spot that looks to John no different from anything they've passed, Sherlock turns abruptly and crashes off through the brush. His coat snags on branches as he goes, but he doesn't notice and his determination seems to make the branches skate off again.

Sherlock is wearing wool trousers, the sort he normally wears with suits. They’re not his nicest pair, but all his clothes are ridiculously nice for someone who can’t afford a flat without splitting the rent, so that isn’t saying much. They’re not trousers anyone else would wear to go camping.  
Atop the trousers is a chocolate brown shirt. No suit jacket, but the same coat as always. Sherlock looks irritatingly normal.

Admittedly, John is also wearing almost the same thing he always wears, but a jumper and jeans are much more suitable to camping than _suit trousers_. And John, at least, has changed his shoes.

"Where are you going?"

"Come on, hurry up."

That's an answer of sorts, John supposes. He follows Sherlock into the undergrowth.

The spot they stop in is less overgrown than what they've passed through, but it's not exactly a clearing, and it's not exactly flat.

"Here we are," Sherlock announces cheerfully.

John looks around. "We're going to start a forest fire," he says.

-

Twenty minutes later--after Sherlock has attempted to unfold the tent and John has taken over and banned him from touching anything--their tent is assembled, their sleeping bags are unrolled, and John is attempting to clear a space to safely start a fire. Sherlock is sulking behind the tent.

"It's not your fault you've never put up a tent, Sherlock," John calls, as he flings twigs and bits of leaves off into the brush. "I've had a lot of practice--I was in the army, after all."

His only answer is the sound of fierce texting. Then, “Damn.”

“John!” Sherlock whines, stalking around the tent and tossing his phone down at John’s foot. “There’s no signal.”

“Well, we are in a forest.”

“So?”

“So, most people go camping to get away from modern technology.” Sherlock stares, clearly uncomprehending. John sighs and pulls his phone out of his pocket, tossing it at Sherlock. “Try mine.” Sherlock catches it deftly and immediately slides out the keyboard and starts typing. John immediately begins to regret this. “Please don’t text any murderers on my phone.”

Sherlock ignores this, and disappears back around the other side of the tent. John, resigned, goes back to the fire.

Twenty minutes later, with kindling burning and the proper logs just beginning to blacken, John has an uncomfortable realization. “Sherlock?”

“Hm?”

“Have you thought about water?”

“Have I, in my entire life, thought about water? Yes, once or twice.”

“I mean,” says John, gritting his teeth, “do you know where we can get water now?”

“Yes.”

“Will you go get water now?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer.

“If you don’t go get water now, you’ll never get any tea.”

Sherlock immediately slides John’s phone into his pocket and steps off into the trees opposite the path.

-

When Sherlock comes back a quarter of an hour later, he is carrying two large plastic jugs of water. He is also impossibly muddy.

John can do nothing but grin. There is mud halfway up Sherlock’s left thigh and spattered across his right knee. The hem of his coat looks like it’s been dipped evenly in mud, and leaves are stuck here and there on his arms. There’s a smear of mud on his forehead, just underneath his hairline.

“What happened to you?” He can hear the amusement in his own voice, so there’s no way Sherlock is going to miss it.

“I went to get water,” Sherlock says coolly.

“Did you wade into the pond to get the special water from the middle?”

Sherlock dumps the jugs of water (where did he get those, anyway?) down next to John, and then sits down on a log on the other side of the fire, looking gloomy and cold.

“Aren’t you going to change?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer.

“You did bring a change of clothes, didn’t you?”

Silence.

“Sherlock, do you want to borrow some trousers?” Sherlock looks pointedly at John’s legs. “Well, yeah, but short is better than muddy and wet.”

“No, thank you, John.”

John begins placing bets with himself over how long Sherlock’s going to last.

-

Watching the fire, John falls into his own thoughts. The world is a blur of grey and green, and their little space around the fire feels like a bubble. Time seems irrelevant. His face feels warm and his limbs numb, as though he’s possessed with a cosy inertia.

They’re not really stuck here, of course, but the trees make it feel like they can’t leave, like John is going to be sitting here staring across the fire at Sherlock’s muddy knees forever.

This sense of eternity and waiting makes John want to talk, to blurt out everything he’s ever thought. He and Sherlock will be stuck here forever, together skirting around each other. In London, in 221B Baker Street, though they live together, it’s still easy to avoid each other. Sherlock always has something going on, whether it is a chemical experiment, a book, his website, or staring off into space in a way that renders him completely unapproachable. John goes to work and goes shopping, comes home and stares at his computer screen or watches telly. When they’re out on cases together, they don’t really talk. Sherlock’s mind moves a mile a minute, but he doesn’t multitask, not really. He deals with the case, or he deals with other things, it’s never both at once.

Being somewhere different rearranges the game. This isn’t their normal routine--and for all the bizarrity of their lives, they do have a routine. Over the last months their routine has allowed them to carefully ignore Moriarty. He’s playing a waiting game with them, probably trying to lull them into a false sense of safety. John doesn’t feel safe. He feels like he’s in limbo, unable to move forward, unable to be normal, but still going about all his normal chores and work and life.

He has stopped trying to meet women. It just doesn’t sound like fun anymore, somehow.

For weeks after the incident at the swimming pool, Sherlock followed every possible lead. He searched for the crack in Moriarty’s network, the one tiny detail that would make it possible to catch him. But it wasn’t there. Sherlock has given up, which still worries John. John knows Sherlock is still thinking, still turning it all over in his head and pulling tentatively at pieces like a ball of knots. John, accustomed to watching Sherlock, has noticed the tension at the base of his neck, built up over the months from all that _thinking_. He’s thinking, but he’s not actively searching any more. He’s not active, which in Sherlock’s world is always bad. He’s still helping Lestrade out with smaller cases, of course, and they occupy him for a while before he fades back into his thoughts. Sometimes, even during those cases, even in the middle of a crime scene, he fades out. John has seen the way his eyes seem to shift in depth, like he’s moving back a couple of layers into his brain.

John is starting to think camping is a very bad idea. There’s nothing here for Sherlock except his thoughts.

“John?”

John startles and glances across the fire. Sherlock is hunched over, looking bedraggled and miserable. “Yes?”

“Do something about this, please.”

“Hah! Knew you’d give in. Take your trousers off.”

Sherlock levels a calm, dark look at him. “I know my social code is a bit skewed, but doesn’t yours say you’re supposed to buy me dinner first?”

“That’s a terrible cliché, Sherlock, I’m disappointed.”

Sherlock is still looking at him. John shivers, and makes a shooing motion at him. Sherlock toes off his shoes and peels off his socks, and then he stands and shrugs out of his coat. His feet are bare and thin and pale against the dirty ground. He pops out the button on his trousers and unzips them very slowly. God, he’s skinny, John thinks, and then realizes belatedly that he’s staring. Sherlock knows he’s staring. Almost like he’s undressing so slowly that John can’t help but stare.

John looks away. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sherlock slide his trousers down his hips and off, dumping them carelessly on the ground next to his coat. He looks so out of place here--but also, just a little, like a wild animal.

Clearing his throat, John turns around and rummages in the bag that’s sitting on the edge of the tarp in front of the tent. He pulls out a pair of jeans, and stands to hand them to Sherlock. Their hands meet over the fire, and it’s very warm. John has to look away from Sherlock’s face, but he finds himself looking down instead, which is worse. The funny contrast between shirttails and pants (faintly striped, bizarrely) makes John wants to giggle. He’s not sure what it says about his world now that it would be worse to giggle here than to giggle at a crime scene.

“They’ll be a bit short, sorry,” John says. “I can’t believe you didn’t think to pack a change of clothes.” He looks up, and Sherlock quirks an eyebrow at him. “Wait, what am I saying. ‘Course I can, you prat.”

Sherlock pointedly ignores this.

He puts John’s trousers on and they are, in fact, too short. His ankles, sticking out, look breakable. He retrieves John’s laptop and sits back on the log, bare feet in the dirt. John pulls today’s newspaper out of his bag and sits down again, resettling himself, immersing himself in the news. He is just getting his attention to properly stick to an article when Sherlock makes a muffled, indignant noise. John glances up.

“What?”

“I have no internet.”

“What did you expect? Wireless routers growing out of the trees?”

“This is the twenty-first century, John, routers shouldn’t even be necessary. I must update my website.”

“Check it on my phone.”

“It doesn’t show up properly on your phone. How can you function like this? Surely you’ve needed to access my website from your phone before.”

“Er, no, actually. There’s not really much on your website, you know.”

Sherlock stares at him.

“I can’t do anything about the phone, Sherlock. You’ll just have to deal. That’s the point of camping.”

Sherlock snorts. “Ridiculous.”

“Fine. What is the point of camping, in our case?”

“We are keeping watch.”

John looks around him. He doesn’t see much worth keeping a watch on. The trees are hardly going to commit any crimes. The worst the squirrels can do is steal their food. “Care to elaborate?”

“There is a group of counterfeiters near here. They’ve been transporting counterfeit bills through this forest to hand them off to a distributor. We are here to wait and watch the exchange.”

“You might have told me that earlier.”

“You never asked.”

John’s not even sure why he never asked. Misplaced stubbornness. “What are we doing in the meantime?”

Sherlock gives him a blank look, and John realizes. Sherlock was planning to think. Sherlock was planning to spend three days thinking about Moriarty. “Fuck, Sherlock, you--” No, he can’t do this. John isn’t going to deal with this. “Fine. It’ll be nice to have a couple of days out of the city. It’s peaceful here.”

“Apart from the counterfeiting ring, of course.”

-

Eventually, John gets hungry and starts rummaging in their cooler for something to eat. He’s been looking forward to camp food, remembers it fondly from his childhood. Camping with Sherlock is nothing like camping with his parents and sister, or his mates from university. He remembers camping as light-hearted, full of silly stories and games, drunken revels, and good if somewhat weird food. With Sherlock it’s like they’ve been transplanted here from 221B Baker Street, with no adaptation at all. At least the food is the same as it used to be.

“Are you hungry?” John asks, filling the kettle and settling it in the coals.

Sherlock is still using the computer, though given there’s no internet John finds this a bit worrying. He thinks with a faint and resigned panic of the less reputable folders buried inside the folders of medical books he’s downloaded. “No,” Sherlock answers, without looking up. John eyes him for a moment, wondering what Sherlock is looking at. He resists the urge to go and find out.

Briefly, John considers making Sherlock something to eat anyway, but he doesn’t want to waste food that’s just going to sit and get cold, so he doesn’t bother. Instead, he pulls out a potato, a carrot, and an onion, and starts chopping.

John is just putting his tin foil packet of vegetables in the fire when Sherlock says, “Tea?”

“What about tea, Sherlock?”

“You did threaten to withhold it if I didn’t fetch water. That was quite some time ago, so you really ought to reward my cooperation.”

John can’t really argue with this, so he digs out a teabag and pours the last of the hot water into a mug.

Next he goes on a hunt for the ideal roasting stick. It’s an art, finding the right roasting stick, and John has spent enough time camping in his life to be picky about it.

He is hunting around the bases of the trees at the edges of their little clearing when Sherlock says, “What are you doing?”

John looks up at Sherlock, who is twisted around on his log to look at John over his shoulder. Sherlock’s brow is wrinkled. He looks the way John feels like he looks when Sherlock is on the hunt for a clue and John has no idea what it is or why it’s important. Being on the other end of the game is fairly hilarious. John grins. “Wouldn’t you like to know.” He’s going to have his fun, even if it is juvenile.

He spots a stick just poking out from under some leaves, and goes to tug at it. It comes out perfect, already stripped of bark at one end and just the right length not to result in singed fingers. John holds it out triumphantly.

“A stick?” Sherlock asks, bemused.

“You’ve really never been near a campfire before, have you?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer, but John can see the twist of his mouth that always marks a gap in his knowledge, even when it’s knowledge he considers unnecessary. He watches as John manoeuvres around him and rummages through the cooler, finding the package of hot dogs. Sherlock seems to find the entire process fascinating, as John peels a hot dog out of the plastic and shoves it on the stick. “Is that sanitary?” Sherlock asks.

“You keep human body parts in the fridge; you can’t talk. A little dirt never hurt anyone.”

“That’s not strictly true.”

John gives him a glare. He won’t let Sherlock put him off his food; it’s happened too many times and John is finally building up a sort of immunity. Which is a little worrying, actually.

He sits down again and sticks the hot dog in the fire (he likes it burnt). “Sure you’re not hungry?”

Sherlock eyes the hot dog distastefully. “Would you like me to tell you what goes into the making of those?”

“No, thanks, please don’t.” John pokes at the tin foil packet, slowly blackening in the coals. “There’s nothing wrong with the veg, you could eat that.”

“Is it considered part of the point of camping?”

“For me, yes.”

Sherlock pauses. “All right, yes.”

“I thought you didn’t care about the point of camping.”

“I’m not interested in getting away from technology. That is, in my case, a pointless point.”

“But you’ll eat camp food.”

“Just cook the vegetables, John.”

“Fine. Hold this.” He hands the hot dog stick across to Sherlock, who takes it automatically and then looks at his hand like it’s betrayed him. “Try not to drop it.”

-

It is nearly midsummer, and it’s a long time before it gets dark. The fire, in contrast with the twilit woods, makes it seem darker than it is. It gets cold sooner than it gets dark. It may be June, but it hasn’t been a very warm June. John looks up from his contemplation of the fire and sees Sherlock shiver. He’s still just wearing a shirt, and he’s hunched in on himself, clearly cold. “You want to borrow a jumper?” John asks, voice rusty.

Sherlock glances up. The firelight makes him look eerie, even more angular than usual, with unnatural eyebrows. His eyes are very dark. “Yes,” Sherlock says simply.

John fetches the jumper, a plain brown one that is too big for him. Sherlock takes it from him, large hand scrunching up the wool. He pulls it over his head, mussing his already-wild hair. “Would I pass for John?” he asks, looking up at John, who stands over him feeling strangely tall.

“No, never.” He looks, though, watches the way Sherlock’s shoulders shift under John’s clothes. He--God, John’s always had a thing about people borrowing his clothes. He hadn’t expected it to work with Sherlock; the man looks ridiculous in too short trousers and too loose jumper. Still, John’s stomach twists. This is... ridiculously good, damn it. He knows he’s staring again, and this time he almost doesn’t care.

There’s still a smear of mud on Sherlock’s forehead. John reaches out and smudges it away with his thumb. His fingertips rest just at the edge of Sherlock’s hair, and linger even when the mud is gone. His thumb slides down to smooth Sherlock’s eyebrow.

“John.”

“Yeah,” John breathes out shakily. He steps away. His left hand is shaking, and he clenches it against his hip. “Okay, I’m going to cover the fire for the night.”

He does so mechanically, avoiding Sherlock’s gaze. “I’m going to bed,” he says. He feels stupid narrating this, hopes Sherlock won’t read anything more into that than he means. His eyes skid across Sherlock’s unreadable face, and then slide off again. Silent, John crawls into the tent, wraps himself up in his sleeping bag, and miraculously goes straight to sleep.

-

Later--God knows when, it’s dark and John is fast asleep--he wakes to something prodding him in the shoulder. Groggy, John rolls over and looks up. All he can see is the vague outline of one shadow darker than the rest. “Sherlock?”

“I can’t sleep in the sleeping bag, John.”

“Huh?” He feels the brush of impatient fingers at his side, and then Sherlock is tugging down the zipper on his sleeping bag. He yelps. “Sherlock, it’s bloody freezing.”

“Exactly,” Sherlock answers, and then John’s feet hit the air.

“What the bloody hell are you doing?”

“Making a proper bed. I can’t sleep in the sleeping bag, there’s no room.” He unfolds John’s sleeping bag so it’s flat on the floor of the tent, and then John hears another zipper, and Sherlock is covering him with half the second sleeping bag. Trust Sherlock to use a sleeping bag as a plain old blanket. John can feel all his precious warmth seeping out the cracks. He rolls over, grumbling about the cold, and then Sherlock tucks his head in against John’s shoulder.

Oh. Warm.

Sherlock gives off heat better than their campfire. Even his feet are warm, which is ridiculous given he’s been barefoot for hours. “Sherlock?”

“Hm?” John feels this more than hears it, a hum inside his skin.

“Nothing. Go to sleep.”

-

The next time John wakes up, he is almost uncomfortably warm. He pauses, eyes still closed, and catalogues the state of his body. Sherlock has slid down in his sleep. His head is pillowed on John’s chest, and his knees are drawn up against John’s thigh, his feet tangled with John’s. His arm is slung low across John’s stomach. Very low.

Oh. Fuck.

John tries not to react. He really does. He tries not to squirm, he tries not to tense, he tries not to make a noise. For all his trying, Sherlock stirs anyway. He buries his nose in John’s shirt and breathes out slowly.

“John,” Sherlock mumbles, teeth against a shirt button. His hand curls loosely around John’s hip.

“I’m just going to--” John slides out from under Sherlock, untangling his feet and slipping out of the blanket. Sherlock rolls onto his back, awake but still slow and relaxed in a way John’s never seen. John looms over him, bent at the waist to fit in the short tent. “Sorry.” He ducks out into the cool morning air before Sherlock can catch his eye, breathing through his nose.

They can’t keep on like this.  
  



	2. Chapter 2

  
When Sherlock emerges from the tent, half an hour later, he is still wearing John’s clothes from yesterday. Must have been wearing them all night, John realizes. He looks rumpled and sleepy.

John is already dressed and in the middle of boiling water for tea. He makes Sherlock a cup without bothering to ask. Sherlock stands barefoot in front of the tent, blinking around at the world. It’s a cool, sunny morning, the perfect kind of June. The weather is cheering John up immensely, and Sherlock’s so sleepy he dares to hope Sherlock doesn’t remember how they woke up.

No such luck.

Sherlock’s eyes narrow on him, bending over the fire. “You needn’t be embarrassed about your arousal, John. It’s only the normal stimulation of the hypothalamus during REM-stage sleep.”

John freezes and clears his throat. “Yes, I’m aware, I’ve a medical degree. You know telling people that doesn’t help?”

“Doesn’t it?”

“Kind of the opposite, really.”

“Oh.”

John finishes making the tea, and hands a cup to Sherlock, who still looks bemused. “Social norms really require you to ignore it until it can’t be ignored and you’re so accustomed to ignoring it that you don’t know how to talk about it?”

John can’t help but grin. Sherlock is adept at pointing out the absurdities of people’s interactions. “Yep,” he answers cheerfully. “And then you probably just have a lot of sex and never talk about it at all.”

“Is that what we’re going to do?”

John feels his face turning red, but before he can answer he hears the sound of voices. Sherlock freezes and turns his head, listening. The voices are still too far away to make out the words.

“Is that--?” John asks.

Sherlock puts his finger to John’s lips, shushing him. He hands the cup of tea back to John, and John, still feeling the faint press of his finger, turns to watch him slip away into the trees. When did he put his shoes on? When did his shoes stop being muddy? Where is he going? John realizes he ought to be thinking about the case and the counterfeiters and whoever Sherlock is chasing, but all he can think about is the way his jumper hangs off Sherlock’s shoulders, the way his stomach feels about this. How can a mad genius who keeps eyeballs in the microwave and goes camping just to catch counterfeiters possibly be so endearing?

“Sherlock!” John hisses, and then puts down the tea and goes after him.

John catches up to Sherlock just as he steps out of the trees, saying “Hello!” in a heartily cheerful voice. It’s the voice John recognizes as his “normal” voice, the one he uses when he’s trying to talk his way into people’s flats and out of trouble.

He is greeting a man and a woman, both wearing jeans, windbreakers, hiking boots, and backpacks. They look ordinary to John, just going for hike through the woods. The woman has dark hair and a pleasant smile, and the man looks like one of those obnoxious twenty-somethings who works in a posh office and goes off to climb mountains and sail yachts at the weekends.

Sherlock holds out his hand to the man, who shakes it automatically. “Going for a hike?” Sherlock asks, still in that strange, normal voice. “These are lovely woods, aren’t they? John and I are camping here; we’re having a lovely time. It’s so nice to get away from technology for a bit, isn’t it?” John snorts softly. Sherlock takes his elbow as he steps out of the trees, half warning and half possessive. “Sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Colin, and this is John.” John wonders why Sherlock gets a fake name and he doesn’t. John’s much more common, he supposes.

The hikers look a little bemused by his enthusiasm, but they introduce themselves readily enough. “I’m Peter Dunningham, and this is my cousin Victoria. My uncle lives nearby. We thought we’d go exploring.” He is almost unbearably sporty and boyish. It’s believable, though. John can’t imagine these two as the counterfeiters.

He wonders, vaguely, when he started questioning everything everyone says about themselves.

“I’m afraid we haven’t had much chance to do any exploring,” Sherlock says, wrapping his hand comfortably around John’s waist. “Bit busy.” He winks, and John bites down hard on his tongue. “Is there anything we really must see?”

“There’s a nice pond a ways back,” Cousin Victoria volunteers.

“Ducks?” Sherlock asks. Oh god, this is so surreal.

“A couple, been there forever.”

“Excellent! I love a nice pair of ducks.”

Peter Dunningham nods vaguely. He’d probably rather shoot the ducks, John thinks. “We’d best be getting back to our tea,” Sherlock says, still cheerful. “It was lovely to meet other nature lovers.” He shakes both their hands. John smiles and waves vaguely, and lets Sherlock tow him back towards their tent.

As soon as they’re out of sight, Sherlock’s posture changes and he drops the enthusiastic grin. “She’s not his cousin,” Sherlock says blandly. “She his secretary, with whom he’s having an affair.”

“They’re not the counterfeiters?” John asks, still trying to shake off the feeling of Sherlock’s forearm against his back.

“John, I’m disappointed. Surely you can tell they’re much too unimaginative to bother counterfeiting cash. Having an affair against company policy is by far the most intrigue they will ever manage.”

“I didn’t think they were. How can you tell they’re not involved at all, though? They needn’t be the brains behind the operation. Reconnaissance or something.”

“No, that was simply a sad waste of time. They’ve nothing to do with the case. Everything suggests he’s got enough money and ambition to spend it on appearances, but not enough that he’s bought the best. His haircut, her perfume--doesn’t suit her, by the way, too much citrus. Good, but not good enough. The counterfeiting should have already brought in enough money to remedy that.”

“Then what did you pretend to be someone else for? You introduced yourself as Colin, pretended that we--”

“I had to be sure. I told you, it was a waste of time.”

John picks up their tea again, handing Sherlock’s to him and taking a sip of his own. “When you do that... go all normal and cheerful, I mean--how do you choose who to be?”

“I don’t choose,” Sherlock says with faint scorn. “They choose for me. It’s simply a matter of adopting the personality to which the suspect will most usefully respond. In this case, I needed to buy enough time to ascertain whether they were part of the counterfeiting. I needed to be cordial enough that they would talk to me, but overbearing enough that they wouldn’t want to join us for tea and biscuits. Finally, he was just homophobic enough that I knew implying a sexual relationship between us would ensure that he not come back this way and interfere with our case.”

It’s not the first time he’s done that. John wishes he didn’t always have such a legitimate reason. “Incredible,” John mutters. It’s barely loud enough to hear, but Sherlock clearly hears it. He smiles faintly.

“Drink your tea, John.”

-

“I’m going for a walk,” John says. He can’t exactly say he’s “going to get some fresh air”, like he normally does, so he just hopes Sherlock will chalk it up to the point of camping, and let him go. He doesn’t need to worry, however. Sherlock barely acknowledges John’s voice, doesn’t notice him go, and John can’t help but be the tiniest bit disappointed.

When he gets back, hours later, his feet hurt but he’s calm. John is a firm believer in the power of walking to cure any and all bad moods. He loves London, loves the bustle and, as Mycroft calls it, the battlefield. Still, there’s a kind of nostalgia to the woods. He’s never been very sentimental, but he’s always been affected by his environment. The hot sky and dust of Afghanistan, the alternating colour and greyness of London. Trees make him feel empty and thoughtful, like he’s shed a coat of unnecessary worry and is now able to look at everything from the outside.

He’s still thinking, letting his mind drift aimlessly from subject to subject, never settling on any one thing long enough to be bothered by it, when he walks into their camp. As soon as he sees Sherlock, John’s mind settles and sharpens into worry.

Sherlock is lying flat on his back on a log that wasn’t there before, impossibly balanced. His arms are crossed over his chest like a sarcophagus. He breathes so slowly his chest barely moves at all, and he is staring at the trees above, clearly not seeing them. His eyes are dark and his mouth is a thin line. It is not a comfortable expression, not happy, not hopeful, not good. He is so far inside his head, behind so many layers, that he doesn’t notice John.

John stands and looks for a moment, worried but guiltily enjoying the chance to stare unimpeded. Finally, he clears his throat. “Sherlock?”

Sherlock’s fingers twitch, and he seems to pull his attention outward. “John.” He sits up, long limbs flailing a bit, looking startled and almost... guilty. Caught. “I was...”

“What?” John asks softly.

Their eyes meet, and it’s just the faintest shade of what it was like, just the once, to look at each other.

-

There’s a moment, just before Sherlock points the gun at the bomb, when he looks at John and tells him _everything_. In that moment, John understands, can see it all in Sherlock’s eyes and his cheekbones and the dimple between his nose and his lips.

Later, in the real world, the world where they are not so alive because they are not about to die, they can’t recapture that knowledge.

-

“I was... thinking about the waiting--it, I.... We’re so helpless, John. I can’t do anything, I can’t. It’s all the wrong way round, I can’t find the trick, I can’t make a move because I don’t know what kind of move there is to make.”

John sits down, very slowly, on the ground. “You can’t play the game, Sherlock? Is that it?”

“No,” Sherlock says, vehement, truthful. “That’s not it. There’s no game, not when I--you.”

John hasn’t heard Sherlock this inarticulate since the pool, since _that thing that you, uh, did, that you offered to do, that was, uh, good._ The only thing Sherlock doesn’t know how to talk about is the idea that John would die for him. He searches Sherlock’s face, desperate to see past the layers. “Have you been sitting here brooding about this all this time?”

Sherlock looks a bit sheepish, but also pained. “Might have been, yeah.”

“Oh. Sorry. For not--” _For not distracting you, for leaving you alone, for..._

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“You overwhelm me sometimes, Sherlock. I can’t always help you. I... uh, I do try.”

Sherlock’s face softens, the sharpness of it smooths away. “Thank you.” Sherlock is an impossible man, impossible to deal with, but John tries. No one else does. That’s good enough to count for success.

“You’ll find it, whatever it is. Or he’ll get sick of waiting. He’s changeable, he said it himself.”

“No, it’s not there. I’d have found it by now.” Sherlock stands, shoving his hands into his hair. “I’m me, John! I’m brilliant. I’d have found it, if there was anything to find. It’s flawless. He’s good, he’s so good. He can’t be that good, of course, he’ll make a mistake eventually, they always do. We just have to wait.”

“I remember, you said that once.”

“It’s true. And Moriarty knows I know it’s true. He knows I get impatient, knows I get bored. Of course he does, he gets bored too. So he’s waiting. He’s hoping if he makes me wait for his mistake I’ll get bored enough to make a mistake myself.”

“You won’t, though, will you?”

“Of course not, John, don’t be stupid.”

John thinks about waiting, about how they’ve let Moriarty put their whole lives in limbo. It’s a terrible feeling. It’s like not being alive at all. And it’s just reached boiling point.

Sherlock’s knuckles are white, he’s pulling his hair so hard. He shuts his eyes and clutches his hair and looks like a child, overwhelmed by the world. John stands and takes hold of Sherlock’s wrists. Fingers loosen, hair springs back into place, and John pulls his arms down. John’s grip on his wrists seems to help, seems to calm him, but he keeps his eyes shut, still inside his head. “Sherlock.” His face relaxes further, eyes still closed. “Sherlock.”

“John,” Sherlock murmurs. He opens his eyes.

“We don’t have to wait on everything,” John says, and kisses Sherlock.

He’s never kissed anyone this much taller before, and he winds up tugging on Sherlock’s wrists to get him down to the right level. He gets an excellent view of the side of Sherlock’s nose, pale skin in funny angles (he can’t look him in the eye, he’ll chicken out). Sherlock inhales sharply, and John takes advantage of his slightly open mouth, pressing his lips against Sherlock’s, parting them to tug on Sherlock’s bottom lip. His right hand lets go and reaches up to bury in Sherlock’s hair. His left hand slides up, holds Sherlock’s elbow in a tight grip. Sherlock is still wearing John’s jumper. That’s weird, that’s... very, very good. John shuts his eyes and pulls away, still holding the back of Sherlock’s head, still there and very still. “Moriarty can wait,” John says. “We don’t have to.”

Sherlock doesn’t answer, just digs his fingers into John’s ribs and pulls him back in--answer enough. He breathes into John’s mouth, lips barely brushing, catching his breath. “Sherlock,” John says into his mouth, “stop fucking waiting.” The point is to be out of breath. It’s not a question of who kisses whom, then, but of Sherlock’s tongue against the roof of John’s mouth and the scrape of John’s teeth against Sherlock’s bottom lip. It’s warm and damp and forceful. John catches Sherlock’s tongue between his lips and pulls, Sherlock tugs it away and presses it back into John’s mouth. It’s hazy and uncertain and just a little bit violent.

Eventually they slow, and John leans back, finally, finally looking Sherlock in the eye. He looks a little dazed, but he’s here now, he’s on the surface. “Sherlock?”

Sherlock’s eyes abruptly focus on him. “What are you doing, John?”

“Kissing you.”

“Why?” It’s a genuine question. He really does sound unsure--not unhappy, but unsure.

“You mean why here, why now, why kissing, or why you?” John grins.

“All of the above.”

“Because this is what we would have done if Moriarty hadn’t changed his mind.” John knows this is true. _You, ripping my clothes off in a darkened swimming pool. People might talk. People do little else_. Sherlock would have helped him up then, would have leaned down and pulled him up, braced him between his body and the edge of the stall while his leg recovered. They’d have been close enough, tense enough, relieved enough, crazy enough. They would have kissed then. “But he came back in and blew the place up, and I was unconscious and you had broken ribs. And then you were trying to solve it, and you don’t eat on cases, I can’t imagine you do anything more distracting. And then we were waiting.”

Sherlock lets go of John’s jumper, steps back to the limit of John’s reach, John’s hand still in his hair. “It must be because of the bomb, the sniper. Near-death experiences often do that to people. Make them... kiss people. Adrenaline.”

“The adrenaline wore off three months ago, Sherlock.”

He looks so confused, so desperate to find a logical, scientific explanation for why John Watson would decide to kiss him. There isn’t one, of course.

“I don’t do relationships, John. I don’t date, or buy flowers for St. Valentine’s Day, or celebrate anniversaries. I never have.”

“I know. That’s not what I’m asking for. I’m not asking for anything. I wanted to kiss you, and I think Moriarty’s been stopping me, and I’ve decided to stop letting him stop me.”

Sherlock’s mouth twitches. “Very well-phrased.”

“Thank you, I thought so.”

Sherlock still looks lost. John’s hand shifts against the back of his head, and he leans into it instinctively, even as he questions John’s motivations. “I know you’re not stupid enough to want a relationship with _me_ , but that is what you want, generally. Why else would you have been so interested in Sarah?”

“Thanks for that vote of confidence in my intelligence. Sherlock, I don’t want a relationship with you, I already have one. I don’t care that it’s not normal, or romantic, or very functional at all, really. But it _matters_ , don’t you see?”

“Of course I see. I didn’t expect you to see.”

John’s expression is fond, irritated, and confused--which, actually, pretty much sums them up. “I see, all right? Might not be 20/20, but it’s close enough.”

Sherlock grins, a broad, open, totally real smile. He reaches out and hooks two fingers in the neck of John’s shirt, not pulling, just holding on. His thumb brushes John’s neck. They stand for a while, just looking. Sherlock is making a face like he’s deducing John, which should make John uncomfortable, but doesn’t.

Finally Sherlock lets go, whirls out of John’s grip, picks up John’s phone, and sits down on the log. John, momentarily startled, watches him as his fingers fly over the tiny buttons. After a moment Sherlock seems to realize that John hasn’t moved, and he looks up, a tiny, reassuring smile on his face.

-

The rest of the afternoon is spent in quiet normalcy. Sherlock ventures off down the path, making deductions under his breath as he goes. John watches him walk away, but he doesn’t follow--he’s at a good part in a bad novel he stole from Mrs. Hudson. When Sherlock gets back John’s a page from the end. He blocks out Sherlock’s muttering just long enough to read the sappy ending, then looks up. “Find anything?”

“Remarkable, what you can see in dirt. Horrible living in it, of course, but it retains so much more information than concrete. I can tell the shoe sizes and styles of everyone who’s passed this way in the last three days.”

“Oh? What’s my shoe size?”

“I don’t need to look at your footprint for that, John,” he says scornfully. “You wear a 9 and a half normally, but the shoes you’re wearing run small so you bought a 10.”

John smiles to himself. He shouldn’t find it as endearing as he does that Sherlock knows that. “Find anything about the counterfeiters?”

“They’ve not been to make a drop-off in two days, they’re almost due.”

“Today?”

“Possibly. I haven’t been able to collect much data on their schedule.”

“Let me know if you need me to help. I’ve finished my book, and I haven’t got another one.”

“Read the one I brought along.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“ _Poisons of the Past: Moulds, Epidemics, and History_.”

John wrinkles his nose. “I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Could come in handy.”

“I’ll let you be the expert on that, thanks.”

“Please yourself.” Sherlock shrugs.

-

Sherlock settles down with the book on poisons, and John dozes off.

He wakes disoriented, with fingers against his mouth. His eyes narrow in the twilight, and focus finally on Sherlock, crouched over him, hand across his mouth to keep him silent. John raises his eyebrows, and Sherlock moves his hand back into John’s hair. “Two men, briefcases,” Sherlock whispers, jerking his head towards the path.

“Armed?” John asks, voice raspy.

“Only knives. They’re bigger than we are, though.”

John shrugs. “Plan?”

Sherlock grins, a little insanely.

“Idiot,” John mutters, and Sherlock pulls him to his feet.

They make their way through the trees, trying to be as quiet as possible. The men are still a ways up the path, but their footsteps are audible. As they get closer, John begins to make out their conversation. It seems to be a debate over someone’s trustworthiness. Sherlock edges forward until he’s just barely concealed behind two trees. John follows, pressing himself against Sherlock’s back so his arm won’t be visible around the tree (this is an excuse). Sherlock ignores him, peering through the crack between the two trees. The men are almost level with them now, and even in the twilight they are clearly the counterfeiters. They just _look_ guilty. No one carries a briefcase through the woods with honest intentions.

“Should we try to follow them?” John whispers. He’s too short to whisper into Sherlock’s ear, so he breathes it against his neck instead.

Sherlock doesn’t answer, but John feels it the moment he starts to move. “Sherlock!” he hisses, but it’s too late. Sherlock slips out from behind the trees, and strides confidently onto the path.

“Good evening, gentlemen.”

John sighs.

-

Afterwards, they lean against the back of the shed full of counterfeiting equipment, grinning and just a little hysterical. Giggling at a crime scene again. At least this time no one’s been shot.

The operation is smaller than expected--just two guys in the shed in a sister’s back garden, and the woman picking up and distributing the fake cash. She escapes, but Sherlock is able to threaten the men into divulging her name and whereabouts, so he’s happy to leave her to the police.

Out front, the two criminals are being herded into police cars, and the sister is being questioned. Behind the shed, John gasps for breath around his laughter. “His face! When you--when you started listing all the things wrong with their fakes! You really shouldn’t do that, Sherlock, it isn’t nice.”

“Am I supposed to be nice to criminals? They deserved it; they were barely trying! Any idiot should have been able to spot the discrepancies. Her Majesty’s eyebrows were all wrong.”

“There’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear.” He leans over, hands against his knees, catching his breath. He doesn’t even know Sherlock’s moving until he’s pressed back against the wall, held upright by Sherlock’s lower body against his. “What?”

Sherlock kisses John, his palms braced against the wall above John’s head, his mouth warm and urgent and strangely comfortable. Sherlock’s not as out of breath as John is, but he’s not calm either. When John pulls back for a moment, he can feel the curve of Sherlock’s grin against his cheek. “This is adrenaline,” John mutters.

“That too,” Sherlock says, a little cryptically, and sticks his tongue back into John’s mouth.

John hooks his hands in Sherlock’s coat pockets and pulls him impossibly closer. He’s wondered about Sherlock’s experience with this, of course he has. He even tried to ask, once, entirely without success. He’s never been able to believe that Sherlock, in his thirties, has never been curious enough or scientifically motivated enough to try, uninterested though he’s always seemed. From the way Sherlock kisses, John can’t tell whether he was right. Sherlock is enthusiastic and a little clumsy, but he doesn’t have the problem with teeth John remembers from teenage experimentation. He kisses like he learned if from a textbook but never took the practicum course. Like he’s kissed before but only ever in the name of science.

Sherlock’s hands slide down the wall and into John’s hair, searching like they’re mapping his skull. He presses in further, until the rough wall scrapes the back of John’s head and his shoulder blades start to ache. John whimpers faintly and hears an answering growl in Sherlock’s throat. “Sherlock,” John gasps, pushing him off and nipping his teeth against Sherlock’s jaw. Sherlock tries to pull him back but John stops him, hand flat against Sherlock’s chest. “Sherlock. The police are still ‘round front. Unless you want them to...”

Sherlock considers this. “No, I think not. Shall we adjourn?”

“Don’t we have to give our statements?”

He ignores this suggestion and turns, shoving his hands in his pockets. The counterfeiters’ house backs onto the woods, and the beginning of the path isn’t too far away. Sherlock’s walking towards it before John’s even collected himself enough to move, but he follows, a little unsteady.

Lestrade will call up in the morning, he supposes, sounding harassed and suspicious. It’s almost a tradition.

John catches up, falling into step with Sherlock and glancing at him in the dim light. “Alright?”

“Hm?” Sherlock looks tense, like he’s holding himself back, like he’s... keeping himself from jumping John, actually. Oh.

“Good?”

He nods once. His thumb brushes against John’s hand, and then slips away.

The woods are very dark. They pause on the edge while John pulls out his phone and opens the torch app he downloaded for cases involving dark alleys and sewers and, yes, woods. He hadn’t actually expected to be using it to find his way to a tent in the woods where he is going to have sex with Sherlock. If that _is_ what Sherlock intends to do.

It’s not far, past the pond where the pair of ducks is curled up together, asleep. John begins to worry he’s going to miss the spot where they turn off, but of course Sherlock knows exactly where it is. He crashes through the brush, letting branches spring back and hit John in the arms. John grumbles, but it’s a fond grumbling.

As soon as they’re out of the trees, Sherlock spins around and takes John’s phone out of his hand, turning it off and tucking it into his pocket. There’s a little moonlight, and the embers of their campfire are still burning faintly, creating strange shadows against the ground. Sherlock’s face is nothing but shadowy angles and eyes, catching all the light and reflecting it back at John. John watches, patient, uncertain but flexible. He’s following Sherlock’s lead, won’t do anything Sherlock isn’t comfortable with or can’t learn to be comfortable with. Sherlock stares, inscrutable. He doesn’t touch, but John feels touched anyway, as if Sherlock’s eyes, his mind, his deductions, are enough to raise goosebumps on John’s skin.

Maybe that is enough.

John’s never been actively interested in men, but he’s never really ruled it out, either. In the beginning he hadn’t been attracted to Sherlock, particularly, but since the pool there’s been a kind of... tension. Though Sherlock interpreted his getting-to-know-you chat as interest, it hadn’t been _that_ kind of interest. But Sherlock is a puzzle. He’s impossible, and infuriating, and astonishingly ignorant, and brilliant, and sometimes very, very sad. He makes John want to make it better. He makes John want to make him happy. That’s not something John’s used to feeling about anyone he’s not sleeping with.

When he sees Sherlock’s face after he steps out wearing the bomb, he knows. He hates himself for getting kidnapped and strapped into a bomb and inflicting on Sherlock that terrible moment of doubt.

John is a sexual man. He’s in love with someone of a gender to which he is not attracted, but he’s not unappreciative of the effect of a warm body, no matter its bits and pieces. He is, in fact, already appreciating Sherlock’s body.

“What are--” John tries. No, he knows better than to ask what Sherlock is thinking. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ve... never done this before, John,” he says, his face blank except for a wry quirk to his mouth.

John’s eyes widen briefly. “Done what?”

“Oh, no, I’ve had sex. A lot of sex, really. It’s so often involved in crime, and the mechanics of it are so specific, I had to have first-hand experience. It was... not unsatisfactory. But it was...”

“Scientific,” John supplies, feeling a mild triumph in having made a correct deduction.

“Yes. Never with anyone I knew, or more than once with the same person. I have never, to use an awkward euphemism, made love.”

John’s stomach curls in on itself, and he feels the desire to make it better spread up his ribs. Not to fix Sherlock--he may be diagnosed, but there’s nothing wrong with him, he’s okay--just to make him happier, to make it easier, to make it all not just fine, but good.

“Come here,” John whispers. Sherlock steps forward silently. John settles his hands on Sherlock’s waist and reaches up to kiss his cheek, his eyebrow, his jaw. He unbuttons Sherlock’s coat and reaches up underneath it, sliding it off his shoulders to puddle on the ground--it needs a good dry-cleaning already, a little more won’t hurt it.

John noses against the underside of Sherlock’s chin and then tilts his head down, pulling back far enough to look him in the eye before he kisses him.

-

Sex is important for John, but he knows it’s not the important part of his relationship with Sherlock. Still, as he pushes Sherlock down and fumbles for the flaps of their tent, it’s pretty damn good. Sherlock scoots back and John crawls in after him. It’s even darker inside the tent, but John finds his shoulders by touch and pushes him back, kneeling over him, braced on his forearms. He shoves his tongue into the hollow of Sherlock’s neck and breathes, then works his way up Sherlock’s neck with tongue and teeth, listening to the shudder of Sherlock’s breath. Sherlock’s hands spread across his back, larger than John’s used to and dexterous, pressing in just the right way. They slide down and underneath John’s jumper, skin on skin. Not enough skin on skin.

John leans back and pulls his jumper over his head, flinging it aside. He reaches for his shirt buttons, but Sherlock stops him. “Light. We need some. I want to see you.” John pauses, hand on Sherlock’s chest, then launches himself at the other end of the tent, where he left a torch last night. He flicks it on and balances it on its end, facing up, so that the light hits the roof of the tent and falls down on them. Sherlock looks pale and wide-eyed. He reaches up and undoes John’s shirt button by button, fingers deft and sure. John sheds the shirt and goes to work at Sherlock’s clothes, dragging the jumper that belongs to John up and off, unbuttoning his shirt. There is barely time for John to take in the broad expanse of Sherlock’s naked chest before Sherlock plants his hand in the small of John’s back and pulls him down, kissing him.

Sherlock’s hand slides down and slips under the waistband of John’s pants. His nails dig into John’s arse, and John makes a quiet, desperate noise. He can feel Sherlock grin even in the midst of a kiss, and then, abruptly, Sherlock rolls them over. “Nngh,” John says, as his nose knocks against Sherlock’s chin.

“Sorry,” Sherlock mutters, looming over him. He’s straddling John’s thighs, and when he leans forward again, their bodies come into full contact. He stops short suddenly, and adjusts his hips against John’s. John takes a shaky breath, and kisses him.

They kiss for a long time, a slow and lazy intertwining of lips and teeth and tongues. John weaves his hand into Sherlock’s hair, and wonders whether Sherlock’s ever done this. Kissing for kissing’s sake. It’s not productive or efficient, maybe it didn’t figure into Sherlock’s scientific equation of scenarios. Though John’s getting impatient, he is happy to give Sherlock this.

Finally, Sherlock plants his hand on John’s unscarred shoulder and pushes himself off, rolling aside. John turns his head and watches Sherlock remove his shoes, peel off his socks, and lift his hips to shove trousers and pants down together.

John’s an army doctor, of course he’s seen other men naked before. He’s not embarrassed about it, doesn’t feel the need to unfocus his eyes to get past the awkward bits.

This is very, very different. Sherlock is skinny, and mostly limbs, and aroused, and looking at him. John’s eyes linger.

“Hurry up, John, take your trousers off,” Sherlock says. It’s a demand, an impatient one. Sherlock is _sure_.

John takes his trousers off.

After that it’s a blur. All John can see his pale skin, and all he can feel is the touch, press, friction of Sherlock’s fingers, and sometimes his mouth. Sherlock rolls onto his side and wraps his hand around John’s hip. His teeth scrape against John’s left nipple and John gasps.

Sherlock slides down, trailing his fingertips along John’s sides, too lightly to tickle but enough to make him shiver. He brushes his thumbs in the hollows of John’s hips, and then licks his way up his cock. “Sherlock--” He blows cool air across the wet stripe, and then he buries his face in John’s stomach and grins. “You, uh, you--”

Sherlock is graceful, but the sound of John’s complete incoherence seems to break his calm a little. He crawls back up and bites down on John’s collarbone, hard. John whimpers and reaches down to dig his fingers into Sherlock’s arse, pulling him up a little further, pulling him on top of John. They thrust against each other, dexterity and finesse abandoned. Somewhere, just before the edge, Sherlock arches his back and looks down into John’s face. The colour of his eyes is completely unfathomable, but his expression, for once, makes perfect sense.

“John,” he whispers.

His own name and Sherlock’s hands on his wrists pull him over. He knows Sherlock follows, but he can’t tell exactly when or how it happens, is too busy trying to breathe, trying not to die in the most embarrassing way ever.

It’s a long time before John feels remotely able to move again, and by that time Sherlock has buried his face in John’s neck and is so sprawled and heavy that there’s no chance of movement anyway.

“You’re heavy,” John says, staring up at the flickering light against the roof of the tent.

“Hmm,” Sherlock answers.

“You’re heavy, and we’re both sticky.”

“Mmhmm,” Sherlock says, nodding against John’s shoulder.

John grins and shoves him off. He rolls away, and now John can see his face he can see the faint smile there, the closed eyes.

John uses his underwear to clean them up a bit, thoughtfully preserving Sherlock’s only available pair to be worn another day (Sherlock won’t think to thank him).

“All right?” John asks, draping himself against Sherlock’s side and pulling the sleeping bag over them.

“Yes.”

“So, how’s sex when it’s not for science?”

“Everything is for science,” Sherlock tells him, sounding a little smug. John isn’t sure whether to be offended.

“It’s not.”

“It is a little bit.”

“Fine. Scientifically, how does this sex compare to the purely scientific kind?”

Sherlock wraps his arm around John’s back and shifts John’s head onto his shoulder. “Incomparable.”

“Good. I think.”

“Yes. Good.”

-

They wake up in a completely different position. John is on his stomach, arms over his head. Sherlock is burrowing underneath John’s chest, one arm across his back. John, vaguely afraid of smothering him, rolls aside and tucks his hand into Sherlock’s hair. Sherlock stirs and opens his eyes. It’s a little scary how quickly he focuses, how soon the vagueness of sleep wears off and he looks at John, completely alert.

“Good morning,” John says.

“Hello.” He grins blindingly, and then throws the blanket aside and gets up, collecting his clothes. John admires the view.

“You’re awake,” John says, not quite there himself.

“Well, yes, John. Clearly.”

John stares at him a little longer, unmoving.

“Come on, John! We can finally get back to the city! The point of camping has been most thoroughly explored, and I need to update my website.” He pulls on his clothes and runs his fingers through his hair. In John’s clothing he still looks unusually casual and messy, but he also looks awake and enthusiastic and very much himself.

Though his traitor of a brain might conjure fantasies of a loving, thoughtful, affectionate Sherlock, that is not, in all honesty, what John wants. He doesn’t want the fantasy any more, no longer has visions of wife, children, and house, or even a normally functioning relationship with a man.

Sherlock leans over him, looking impatient. “Are you going to lie there much longer? We’ve got to fold up the tent. And by we, I mean you.”

John grins, and catches Sherlock’s ankle in his hand. He runs his thumb along the curve of the bone, just looking, not speaking, silently reminding Sherlock where they stand. Sherlock is very still, looming over John, looking down with concentration on his face. Finally, John lets go. “All right, all right, I’ll get up.”

-

Sherlock barely gives John time to eat breakfast before he’s packing things haphazardly into bags and poking at the tent to see how it folds up.

They are back in Baker Street almost before John realizes what’s happened. He drops the last of their camping equipment on the floor, and then stands in the middle of the room, looking at their flat. Nothing’s changed. It all looks just as it always did. His stomach curls into itself. The flat is still here, waiting for them. Waiting....

Sherlock comes up the stairs behind him and drops onto the sofa, pulling out his laptop. After a moment, he notices John hasn’t moved and glances up.

“You’re making a face, John.”

“What?”

“A face, you’re making a face.” Something of what his insides are experiencing must be apparent in his expression, because Sherlock sets aside his computer and stands up. “What’s wrong, John?”

“Nothing, nothing’s wrong.”

Sherlock approaches rather cautiously, and he stands in front of John without touching. His eyes search John’s face, and seem to find their answer both in John’s eyebrows and the way he holds his shoulders.

“You’re afraid it was a fluke. You felt we were in limbo, putting our lives on hold for Moriarty, so you tried to change it. And now you’re afraid it only worked because we were in a strange environment. Now we’re back you think we’ll go back to waiting.”

“How--” John shuts his mouth. “Yes.”

“We’ll keep waiting for Moriarty. I’m not stupid enough to make the first move. I won’t wait for anything else. You do realize it’s up to us, don’t you? We’re not completely slaves to our environment. Camping may have been the catalyst, but it’s not as if we’re going to delete it now we’re back in London.”

This warms John inexpressibly. Sherlock’s ideas of what is worth storing on his hard drive are unconventional. There’s no counting on him not to delete as irrelevant the things that John considers essential. The name of the Prime Minister, the movement of the earth around the sun, the memory of Sherlock’s hands on his body.... To know that they are measuring things in the same way is reassuring.

“All right. Good. I believe you. No more waiting.”

Sherlock nods once, finally, and sits back down with the computer. John finds a newspaper which Mrs. Hudson must have left for them, and sits down in his chair to read it. He is easily distracted, though--something keeps nagging at the back of his mind.

“Sherlock?”

“Hmm.”

“Why did we go camping?”

“To catch the counterfeiters, John, don’t be stupid.”

“We spent two days just sitting and waiting for the counterfeiters. That’s not the same as catching them. You usually let the police do that kind of thing. It can’t have been an interesting case, not for you.”

“Your deduction skills are improving, John.”

“Er, thanks. I assume that means I’m right. So why did we go camping?” Sherlock gives him a look, but he doesn’t answer. “Oh, you’re going to make me work it out.”

John stares blindly at his paper for a while, puzzling over the question.

“You knew, didn’t you? That it would be a--what, a catalyst?”

“Perhaps I just wanted to get you alone in the woods,” Sherlock suggests, leering faintly.

John snorts. “No, I don’t think so. You knew we needed a change. You knew we were in limbo--though I don’t think you knew exactly what that meant. So you took advantage of the first case outside of London that came along.”

Sherlock’s fingers pause on his keyboard. A small smile hovers on his lips, and then he goes back to typing. The look remains, pleased and a little anxious. It’s unusual and lovely, and John indulges himself, just looking. Sherlock is present again. In the months since the incident at the pool, whenever they’ve been just sitting around the flat Sherlock’s been somewhere inside his head, unreachable. Finally, he’s on the surface again.

John’s still not sure how they wound up going camping--but he’s glad they did.  



End file.
